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About David

David is the Museum’s associate curator of paleontology. In addition to running the Museum’s dig program in Seymour, TX and curating exhibits, he’s also unofficial head of The Department of Mysteries, a shadow wing of HMNS that deals with strange goo, unusual fossils, mysterious substances or any other unknown object you'd like to know what to do with.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science was founded in 1909 - meaning that the curators of the Houston Museum of Natural Science have been collecting and preserving natural and cultural treasures for a hundred years now. For this yearlong series, our current curators have chosen one hundred exceptional objects from the Museum’s immense storehouse of specimens and artifacts—one for each year of our history. Check back here frequently to learn more about this diverse selection of behind-the-scenes curiosities—we will post the image and description of a new object every few days.

This description is from David Temple, the museum’s curator of paleontology. He’s chosen a selection of objects that represent the most fascinating fossils in the Museum’s collections, that we’ll be sharing here – and at 100.hmns.org/ – throughout the year.
Brachiopod, Grandaurispina kingorum
(Permian, Willis Ranch Member, World Formation, Brewster County, Texas)

The Glass Mountains are famous for silicified fossils of Permian age, such as this Brachiopod. Unique build-ups of fossil shells, both wave-generated accumulations of dead shells and massive brachiopod-dominated reefs, produced by the complex interactive growth of millions of marine invertebrates that occur in the Glass Mountains.

Fossils from the Glass Mountains are of special interest because of their level of detail. Blocks of limestone from the Glass Mountains can be treated with weak acids to dissolve the limestone from the acid-resistant silicified fossils. This process often leaves unharmed the delicate spines and ornamentation found on some brachiopods and bivalves.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science was founded in 1909 - meaning that the curators of the Houston Museum of Natural Science have been collecting and preserving natural and cultural treasures for a hundred years now. For this yearlong series, our current curators have chosen one hundred exceptional objects from the Museum’s immense storehouse of specimens and artifacts—one for each year of our history. Check back here frequently to learn more about this diverse selection of behind-the-scenes curiosities—we will post the image and description of a new object every few days.

This description is from David Temple, the museum’s curator of paleontology. He’s chosen a selection of objects that represent the most fascinating fossils in the Museum’s collections, that we’ll be sharing here – and at 100.hmns.org/ – throughout the year.

Timelines are an important element to telling a story through exhibits. At the Houston Museum of Natural Science, early life on Earth is recreated in a linear timeline, with the fossils themselves as the “stops.” The time represented is collectively grouped as the Paleozoic period, and accounts for around 300 million years of the history of life.

The fossils displayed on the wall form the stops on the time line, grouped by famous localities that historically defined the sub eras: Pre-Cambrian, Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian. This is appropriate as, prior the development of technology that allows paleontologists to compute absolute dates, the divisions between the geologic periods were defined by the fossils present in geologic layers. At first glance, the fossils in the case may appear similar, but they are very different, and come from many of the type localities that created the boundaries.

To bring this timeline to life, a vibrant visual motif was created. Mounted behind the fossils is a brightly lit graphic that unfreezes the animals from their rock prisons and remembers them as best we can, alive and in their natural environments. This motif came from an original oil painting commissioned by the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The Paleozoic diptych, painted by acclaimed paleontology artist William Stout, is titled “Life Before the Dinosaurs.” The original oils have never been exhibited publicly, but grace the walls of a conference room.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science was founded in 1909 - meaning that the curators of the Houston Museum of Natural Science have been collecting and preserving natural and cultural treasures for a hundred years now. For this yearlong series, our current curators have chosen one hundred exceptional objects from the Museum’s immense storehouse of specimens and artifacts—one for each year of our history. Check back here frequently to learn more about this diverse selection of behind-the-scenes curiosities—we will post the image and description of a new object every few days.

This description is from David Temple, the museum’s curator of paleontology. He’s chosen a selection of objects that represent the most fascinating fossils in the Museum’s collections, that we’ll be sharing here – and at 100.hmns.org/ – throughout the year.

Vast swamps covered many parts of the world during the Pennsylvanian Period. The plants that grew in them included ferns, seed ferns, rushes, and tree-like lycopods with scaly trunks. When these plants died, they settled into stagnant, oxygen-poor water, in which their carbon was eventually preserved as coal. Among these coal swamps lived many kinds of amphibians, the first small reptiles, many types of insects and other arthropods such as large cockroaches, giant dragonflies, millipedes and scorpions.

The Houston Museum of Natural Science was founded in 1909 - meaning that the curators of the Houston Museum of Natural Science have been collecting and preserving natural and cultural treasures for a hundred years now. For this yearlong series, our current curators have chosen one hundred exceptional objects from the Museum’s immense storehouse of specimens and artifacts—one for each year of our history. Check back here frequently to learn more about this diverse selection of behind-the-scenes curiosities—we will post the image and description of a new object every few days.

This description is from David Temple, the museum’s curator of paleontology. He’s chosen a selection of objects that represent the most fascinating fossils in the Museum’s collections, that we’ll be sharing here – and at 100.hmns.org/ – throughout the year.

The saber-tooted cat, Smilodon represents a kind of power and ferocity unmatched by modern big cats. There has been some scientific debate as to how saber-toothed cats hunted, some arguing that the victim’s throat was neatly sliced by the saber-like canine teeth as the cat’s jaws closed. Others believe that the soft underbelly was the target for mortal injury.

You can see more images of this fascinating artifact – as well as the others we’ve posted so far this year – in the 100 Objects section at 100.hmns.org.

Wander among prehistoric beasts in the Paleontology Hall, a permanent exhibition at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.